When a new peripheral device of a computer system is connected to a computer, the operating system of the computer generally issues a request asking the user of the peripheral device to install the appropriate device driver for the peripheral device. The user then inserts a disk having stored thereon the device driver. The computer operating system will then automatically execute an auto-run function allowing the user to follow an installation procedure for accomplishing the installation of the device driver onto the computer.
A peripheral device can be connected to the computer by use of a bus, such as a universal serial bus (USB), an IEEE 1394 bus (Firewire), or a peripheral component interconnect bus (PCI). When a peripheral device, such as a printer, scanner, digital camera, disk drive, or any computer recognizable device, is connected, the operating system of the computer first detects the existence of the peripheral device and then checks if the computer has already been installed with the device driver.
In the case where a device driver has not been installed, the host operating system of the computer issues a series of requests for the user to follow an installation procedure. The installation procedure is completed when the host operating system can perform its auto run function to include the peripheral device in the device execution file.
FIG. 1 illustrates an example of how a USB disk box 14 (as one example of a peripheral device) is installed to a computer system 21 in a traditional way. First, the user connects the USB disk box 14 to the USB (or other bus) adapter 24 of the computer 21. The USB adapter 24 issues a signal to the computer indicating a peripheral device is currently connected to the computer. The USB adapter 24 issues an interrupt signal to the computer 21.
Next, when the computer 21 receives the interrupt signal, it collects the USB installation information from the I/O ports of the USB adapter 24, and if the peripheral device is new, then it issues an inquiry command to the USB adapter 24. Then, the USB adapter 24 issues an inquiry command to the USB disk box 14 using the USB communication protocol, and the USB disk box 14 returns, as depicted in FIG. 1, a value indicating there are three disk drives in the disk box 14. Since a disk device is a piece of fundamental peripheral equipment of any computer system, the host operating system 23 simply takes these three new added disk drives as general storage devices.
“However, it should be noted that the user typically has to manually install a software program such as volume management software to the computer 21 for the control of the new added disk drives, such as for RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) 5 control.”
Traditionally, each peripheral device has associated therewith a detached storage disk that stores the device driver and the instructions for its installation. It is not uncommon for peripheral devices to be moved from computer system to computer system. Each time the peripheral device is moved, the user must have the storage disk with the driver information. The storage disk may be lost, or worse yet, a wrong driver may be installed. The installation of a wrong device driver may jeopardize the computer system operation.
In other words, the traditional method of using a storage disk to store the device driver and its installation program makes the installation and/or re-installation of a device driver sometimes problematical. Accordingly, there exists a need for an easy installation system and product for connecting peripheral devices to computer systems with minimum human intervention and no downloading from a storage disk is required.